Francis I. duPont & Co. Genealogy: Part IX

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Glore, Forgan & Co., Continued

Glore, Ward & Co. (founded 1920, Chicago)
Marshall Field, Glore, Ward & Co. (founded 1920, Chicago)
Field, Glore & Co. (founded 1928, Chicago)

Born in Arkansas, Charles F. Glore (1886-1950) was raised by his mother, Laura, an Illinois native, who worked in a factory as a bookkeeper. Glore studied at the Lewis Institute and the University of Chicago. He later worked at A.B. Leach & Co. (founded 1906, Chicago), a Chicago bond house, where he rose to the position of vice president. In 1920, he created a partnership with Pierce C. Ward and Allen L. Withers, who had both been managers of Goldman Sachs & Co.'s Chicago office. The New York Herald stated, "It is announced that a new investment banking house has been organized by several men for many years prominently identified with the investment banking and commercial paper business in Chicago." The firm was called Glore, Ward & Co.

The reputation of the firm's partners was such that Marshall Field III (1893-1956), the grandson of Chicago retail magnate Marshall Field (1834-1906), joined the firm by the end of the year, releasing a statement saying that he wanted to enter into the securities brokerage business and that he had chosen Glore, Ward & Co. as associates. Educated at Eton and Cambridge, Field III became an heir to the $120 million Marshall Field fortune after his father, Marshall Field, Jr., died in an accidental shooting in 1905 when he was only 12 years old. His grandfather, Marshall Field, is said to have died soon after from grief. Being more interested in finance than retail, Field III "started his business career...as assistant to the head bookkeeper of a brokerage house." The Evening World reported, "It is said young Mr. Field is ambitious to have the name Marshall Field occupy as prominent a position in the financial world as in the dry goods business." Reflecting Field's social and economic capital, the name of the firm was changed to Marshall Field, Glore, Ward & Co. In 1927, when Peirce Ward retired, the firm's name was changed and abbreviated to Field, Glore & Co.

Marshall Field III, 1920. Image courtesy Library of Congress.

In the 1920s, the firm underwrote a number of foreign bond issues, as well as a $17.5 million bond issue for Marshall Field & Co. By the mid-1930s, Field, Glore & Co. established itself as an underwriter for industrial and public utility corporations and was considered "a pioneer among western institutions in the investment banking business." It continued in the field of investment banking even after Marshall Field decided to retire from the firm in 1935 to focus on other interests. (He later became a prominent philanthropist and the founder of the Chicago Sun, which he merged with the Chicago Times in 1947). At the time, some suggested the "threat of increased taxes" had also induced Field to withdraw from the securities business. Field no longer had a connection with the firm, but he did not withdraw his name immediately. In 1937, the firm was renamed Glore, Forgan & Co. Charles F. Glore and J. Russell Forgan became the senior partners.

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